Fox passes off GOP press release as its own research -- typo and all

From Media Matters courtesy of Eschaton:

During the February 10 edition of Fox News' Happening Now, co-host Jon Scott claimed that "the Senate is expected to pass the $838 billion stimulus plan -- its version of it, anyway. We thought we'd take a look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, and grew." In tracking how and when the bill purportedly "grew," Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods. However, all of the sources and cost figures Scott cited, as well as the accompanying on-screen text, were also contained in a February 10 press release issued by the Senate Republican Communications Center. One on-screen graphic during the segment even repeated a typo from the GOP document, further confirming that Scott was simply reading from a Republican press release.

More here.

Okay, this is pretty damned funny.

I mean, anybody with half a brain, and I'm including conservatives here, already knows that FOX News isn't much more than a propaganda megaphone for the Republican Party. It's obvious at face value, and there has been extensive research, performed by multiple parties, proving it so, again and again. But there's this sometimes maddening, occasionally amusing, always bogus game of denial FOX likes to play: "we're 'fair and balanced,'" the Orwellian network always declares; professional asshole and FOX fixture Bill O'Reilly actually insists he's not conservative. Of course, most people know better, but how do you respond when people lie directly to your face, knowing that you know they're lying, daring you to contradict them? It's not easy to get your opponent to listen to your argument, an incredibly long list of misdeeds, without his interrupting constantly with bullshit responses, making a mockery of the entire exchange.

But this latest gaffe. You've just got to love it. It reminds me of teaching high school, busting kids who plagiarized their papers off the internet: "Listen man, all I had to do was a single Google search for a few lines in your essay; look here, you even misspelled the same words, and you don't know a damned thing about semicolons and independent clauses anyway. You are so busted." It is hilarious to note that FOX News and lazy-fuck teenagers have much in common.

I wonder if FOX will even make an attempt to refute this. Their standard take is that Media Matters is a far-left agit-prop group funded by the likes of George Soros and other lefty billionaires involved in some sort of international conspiracy to get the UN to take over everything. Simply ignoring this report is probably the best approach, from their perspective, but guys like O'Reilly and Hannity just can't keep their mouths shut.

This could get fun.

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